Posted
by
kdawson
on Saturday August 07, 2010 @08:23PM
from the many-mules-make-light-work dept.

Late in 2008, the most sophisticated and well-coordinated international e-crime yet pulled off netted $9 million for its perpetrators. We discussed the RBS WorldPay heist when news about it emerged, and the indictments some months later. Now one of the accused ringleaders has been extradited from Estonia to face charges in the US. "...in the span of 12 hours around Nov. 8 [2008], the group hit 2,100 ATM terminals in 280 cities spanning the world, from the United States to Russia to Italy to Japan. ... Despite the technical and international challenges of the case, US investigators believe they were able to trace the scheme back to its origin. On Friday they brought one of the accused ringleaders from Estonia to Atlanta to face arraignment on several fraud charges — a rare appearance in US courts for an accused international hacker. Sergei Tsurikov, 26, of Tallinn, Estonia, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment to conspiracy to commit computer fraud, computer fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. ... The increasing scope of foreign attacks comes as college students around the world are focusing heavily on technology degrees only to emerge into a difficult job market with low pay, officials said."

Yes, we use it for one of our websites. It is Royal Bank of Scotland WorldPay - as would make sense, as opposed to Worldplay. KDawson strikes again - obviously it'd be too much to ask him to spend 10 seconds editing as his job title would suggest.

If he's found guilty, of course. Guys like these must be made examples off, so that it will deter future crimes like these.

I'm glad he's facing good old American justice. We are the best and the most aggressive in putting evildoers and troublemakers in prison, so justice should be well served.

I am sorry, I know you are a red-blooded American and all, but holy shit that is the most nationalist hunk of crap I have seen on here in awhile. Consensual crime? If the judge/jury see it as being *bad* enough, off to the rape cage. Are those people troublemakers or evildoers? That could be argued, moreover, argued against. Prisonplanet is more like it.

On second thought, we are definitely the best and most aggressive at putting socially unacceptable people in prison, and justice is rarely served. FTFY.

This is America sir, where white collar crimes are deemed a max of 3 months in a luxurious prison. However, if you steal all the money at once, its blue collar and considered a threat to national security. Thus the outrage of the OP.

Only if you are a well-heeled white collar type with political connections.Other riffraff ( software engineers, mathematicians, scientists ) can expecta good PMITA in something other than a federal "hedonism II" resort.Not good, unless you are gay and into the rough trade.NTTATRWT.

To these people, it's not 'fucking someone over'. It's '+1 to my score'. Seriously, the way the system works these people think their job is to get as many convictions as possible, not to secure justice. That's why they stack charges to intimidate people who are innocent and make plea bargains with them, that's why they look for defects in laws as carefully as corporate tax lawyers but for the purpose of getting people locked up, and that's why the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world [wikipedia.org]

Oh yes, especially if they are a minority. What is the saying? 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's prison prisoners. Of course I wonder if they count the millions in chinese re-eduction camps run by the military and used as slaves to mass produce goods for sell on the American market, but I digress.

Aint it cool how we can go grab someone from another country and force him to stand trial using our laws and rules.

Oh wait.. no... it's that other thing.... pretty stupid.

How long until some guy gets dragged into muslim land to stand trial for something their laws say. Well maybe not muslim land. we hate those guys... but what about someplace like china..They have the pull to get the other countrys to dance to their tune.

Apologies if you were actually being sarcastic or something, but... if someone kills you, and hops a plane to say, Portugal, they should get away with killing you, because they're not in the US any more?

Crimes committed over the internet, or a country claiming its laws were violated by someone who was never within their borders is a different matter, but if ATMs in the US were hit, this seems like a pretty clear case of "broke the law, get held responsible."

Mostly I just meant it's not black and white for the other crimes. As for the other countries that got hit, well, first come first served. If he's not convicted in the US for whatever reason, and they think they can make a case, go for it. I'm sure the US wouldn't have a problem shipping him to someone else for a shot if they don't get it. And if the US does convict him, go for the other people involved. It's not like he was in it alone. There's plenty of people to try.

The GUY has probably never been in the USA before now. HE didn't hit any ATMs in the US at all. In fact, from my understanding, he didn't hit any ATMs at all anywhere. What he did was figure out how to fool the world pay system, and distributed that information to third parties for a cut of their take.

perhaps he should have moved to a country that doesn't have an extradition treaty with the united states. (estonia has since 1935.)

It should maybe be clarified that, although Estonia has had an extradition treaty with the US since 1935, it hasn't been effective for most of that time.

For most of the time the treaty has been in place, Estonia was under the rule of the Soviets, and I suspect that there would have been no chance of getting someone extradited during that time. It was only from 1934 until late 1939 and then from 1991 that it was likely to happen.

However, your point stands as a good one, a smart Estonian would probably have s

Dr. Evil: "Here's the plan. We get the warhead, and we hold the world ransomed for.....Nine MILLION DOLLARS!!"No.2: "Ahem...Well, don't you think we should maybe ask for *more* than Nine million dollars? Nine million dollars isn't exactly a lot of money these days. Virtucon alone makes over nine billion dollars a year!"Dr. Evil: "Really?"No.2: "Mm-hmm."Dr. Evil: "That's a number. Okay then. We hold the world rans

"The increasing scope of foreign attacks comes as college students around the world are focusing heavily on technology degrees only to emerge into a difficult job market with low pay, officials said."

If you're coming out of college right now with a degree in some form Information or Computer security, then that's probably not going to be the case. From what I've heard, job placement for graduates at my university is pretty good.

Catch is in a tough job market, trust takes precedence over qualifications. Especially when you start squeezing down salaries of your computer IT staff. Stories like this will ramp up the fear factor, any hint of untrustworthiness will make successful job applications pretty hard especially in an interconnected world.

The other big thing of course, 'identity theft' (the credit card company lie for defrauding the accepted the false identity), ain't no such thing as identity theft in the cash economy, apart

They hit 2,100 ATM terminals in 280 cites and only cleared $9 million? Presumably they needed at least several hundred people for this. So each guy's take is a few thousand. The bosses maybe get half. And even if they hadn't got caught, they couldn't expect to be able to go back for a second taste.

I wouldn't say no to a few million profit, but it seems a very small return for compromising so many banks. Might have been better to have sold the method to the banks.